How do you take apart a power station that experienced a triple meltdown?

The nuclear accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi occurred nine months ago, but the cleanup and decommissioning of the power station has only just begun. We asked the experts what will be happening at the site when the one-year anniversary of the accident rolls around in March, and what to expect from the 10-year and 100-year milestones.

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The damaged reactor 1 building has been surrounded by a steel frame with a protective plastic covering to prevent radioactive emissions.

The reactor buildings 1, 3, and 4, which were all shattered by explosions during the accident, have been covered to prevent radioactive emissions.

All radioactive debris has been removed from the buildings’ interiors and radioactive particles have been scrubbed from walls and floors to allow the decommissioning effort to go forward.

Option 2: The reactor cores have been removed, and the reactor buildings have been dismantled and transported to a radioactive waste storage facility.

Meltdowns occurred at the three reactors active at the time of the accident (units 1, 2, and 3). These reactors’ damaged nuclear cores, made of a congealed mix of uranium and other metals, are now kept at a stable temperature of below 100 °C.

The protective primary containment vessels have been flooded with water to help block radiation during work. Lids of the inner pressure vessels have been opened to allow workers to determine the exact location of the damaged cores.

Option 1: The damaged cores have been left in place inside the entombed reactor buildings.

Option 2: The damaged cores have been removed. While submerged in water, they were broken into pieces by drills, sucked up into containers, and transported to an off-site waste storage facility.

Construction is under way on an underground iron wall between the reactor buildings and the sea to prevent radioactive water from leaking into the ocean. The wall will be made of 22-meter-long iron pipes sunk into the ground.

The underground wall is complete.

The demolition of damaged auxiliary structures is complete. Debris removal is complete.

Option 1: The entombed reactor buildings are still off-limits.

Option 2: The grass grows over the site where Fukushima Dai-ichi once stood.

Areas within 3 km of the plant are still off-limits. The government bought this land to use for temporary storage facilities for contaminated debris and sludge from the plant, and for contaminated soil from surrounding areas.

Other areas within the 20-km mandatory evacuation zone have been cleaned by an arduous process of topsoil removal from farmland, forests, and residential areas. Up to 5 cm of topsoil was removed from an area covering as much as 2400 square km. This cleanup resulted in up to 30 million cubic meters of contaminated waste.

While the site of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant itself is still off-limits, the towns within 3 km of the plant have been decontaminated. However, it seems doubtful that anyone will choose to live there again.